Friday, October 07, 2011

More queer folk needed at Australian universities?

GAYS, lesbians and transsexuals have been named as a new equity sub-group that universities must track for their progress in enrolment and retention.

The federal Education Department has asked universities to report back on improvements in rates of under-representation, even though there is no data to suggest this group participates in higher education at lower rates than the rest of the community.

"In fact, general surveys of gays and lesbians show high levels of educational attainment," said Andrew Norton, higher education director with think tank The Grattan Institute.

The document also asks universities to report on their work with people from non-English speaking backgrounds, although recent research has confirmed that this group, on average, has higher levels of participation and success than Australian-born students.

While universities are striving to meet the government-set equity target of 20 per cent of disadvantaged people holding a degree by 2020, the inclusion of these new equity indicators has raised eyebrows.

"Lots of universities have programs to improve inclusiveness, but sexuality is not an under-representation issue, its a social justice issue," said the Queensland University of Technology's equity director, Mary Kelly.

Ms Kelly said universities did not collect data on sexual orientation -- and would probably create a public outrage if they tried to. The only required areas were indigenous background, country of birth and disability. She said she thought the move was probably a result of ill-informed goodwill on the part of a federal bureaucrat rather than government direction.

The manager of student access and equity at Deakin University in Victoria, Jennifer Oriel, described using sexual orientation as an indicator of equity as "a nonsense". "My opinion is that disadvantage has to be produced by poor educational participation or outcomes," she said. "We need to keep in mind that higher education equity is about improving the outcomes from structurally disadvantaged backgrounds."

Included in the document, under the sub-heading "Gender", are women in engineering and computing and men in education and nursing.

Ms Kelly said while women in non-traditional areas was a hot topic, the debate on men in certain disciplines had been "won and lost" some time ago. "Men are not going into nursing and teaching because they are in other professions and the trades and they don't want to go into underpaid jobs."

Private investigator Travis Burch, who was hired by Mr McIntyre to find out the website's author so he could sue for defamation, said yesterday that it was "a good day for people who don't frankly want to be defamed on the internet".

"We've done a lot of work in this area and identifying and pushing trying to expose people and tracking them down through records that they leave on the Internet," Mr Burch said. "Having a win in courts just means we're a couple of steps closer to bringing the person to a form of justice. "The content that appeared on that website and (has) been promoted through the website is blatantly defamatory."

Barrister John Bryson said he thought it was the first time legal action of this kind against Google had been successful in Australia. "People need to know that they can take on the big companies, the major players, and get a win," Mr Bryson said.

The allegedly defamatory website is one of the first listings on a Google search for Mr McIntyre and countless efforts to find the owners, including hiring a private investigator, have so far been unsuccessful.

Medical specialist Gino Pecoraro calls for scalpel to be used on Queensland Health bureaucracy

HIGH-profile medical specialist Gino Pecoraro has called for the scalpel to be used on the Queensland Health bureaucracy, describing it as a "behemoth".

Dr Pecoraro - past president of the Australian Medical Association Queensland - said huge amounts of money could be freed up for patient care by cutting back on public servants.

"You have the situation where you have this huge layer of middle management where - for every person who's actually doing work - you've got seemingly endless numbers of people managing them, figuring out whether they're doing it to the best of their ability," he said.

"I think that's where we need to look to find efficiencies. "I think, if we are honest about getting the biggest bang for our buck, we need to cut out all the middle men, decrease that burgeoning bureaucracy."

Dr Pecoraro spoke at The Courier-Mail's community forum on health, which discussed issues ranging from the need for more money to be spent on preventative health to a lack of beds in the public hospital system and the importance of attracting Visiting Medical Officers to regional areas.

Emergency specialist David Ward - who has worked in the private and public sectors - said the lack of public hospital beds caused emergency departments to become "constipated", often unable to offload patients to a ward in a timely manner. "The southside of Brisbane is about 800 beds short," he said. "That's a hospital the size of the Princess Alexandra that needs to be built now."

Associate Professor Ward - who works at Holy Spirit Northside Emergency - said bed shortages were also particularly acute in Cairns, Townsville and the Gold and Sunshine coasts.

Former Queensland Health Deputy Director-General Andrew Wilson said politicians of all persuasions had shied away from making decisions on preventative health measures, such as restrictions on junk food advertising, despite "reasonable" evidence that they worked.

Professor Wilson, now the Queensland University of Technology's health faculty executive dean, said: "We . . . have to recognise that there are people now who have very significant health problems as a result of their weight. "That's another thing that's going to have to go on a long list of things which the system has to factor in."

BUILDING workers would be banned from demanding super-sized pay packets under tough new rules aimed at curbing union power. The Baillieu Government would require contractors on taxpayer-financed projects to follow its hardline union-busting approach or be banned from future work.

Fears of runaway costs have sparked the move, after major blowouts at the desalination plant.

The Government is keen to ensure the $5.3 billion Regional Rail Link project does not suffer the same fate as the Wonthaggi site.

Future unrelated private work done by companies with state contracts would also have to comply with the new rules.

In what loomed as the biggest challenge to union power in Victoria since the Kennett era, government inspectors would raid worksites, question workers and seize documents. Compulsory union membership would be banned, including those practices designed to disrupt non-union members and force them to join.

Unions would not be able to "directly or indirectly coerce or pressure" contractors to make over-award payments.

Finance Minister Robert Clark said the new building and construction industry code of practice would mean fewer cost blowouts. "Taxpayers (will) get better value for money when funds are spent on community infrastructure, such as schools, hospitals, roads and public transport," he said.

Former federal Liberal workplace relations minister Peter Reith has backed the proposals. "Victorians have been paying through the nose because of poor behaviour by militant trade unions," Mr Reith said.

2 comments:

Paul
said...

"the debate on men in certain disciplines had been "won and lost" some time ago. "Men are not going into nursing and teaching because they are in other professions and the trades and they don't want to go into underpaid jobs."

Nurses whine a lot about being underpaid, but in fact its not that bad. And.. public sector employees have no understanding of just how easy they have it next to those in much of the Private sector. We are mollycoddled and wrapped in cotton wool. Most have been their whole lives in public sector employment and just can't see it. And I gotta say that, really, the "all male nurses are Gay" thing is in fading into the past. Maybe its something to do with the dismantling of manufacturing and the export of jobs in that sector. In the end men will seek to work to support a family and build a life. If that means Nursing then that's what they do.

Are we paying these idiots to prattle on with this rubbish? What happened to just going to Uni because you wanted to learn a discipline? You know I like it up here in the country because this quasi-academic drivel seems (and is) a million miles away. Next Melbourne Uni will stick the Chancellor on a Mardi-Gras float to help recruit the PC quotas.

Background

Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party.

Most academics are lockstep Leftists so readers do sometimes doubt that I have the qualifications mentioned above. Photocopies of my academic and military certificates are however all viewable here

For overseas readers: The "ALP" is the Australian Labor Party -- Australia's major Leftist party. The "Liberal" party is Australia's major conservative political party.

In most Australian States there are two conservative political parties, the city-based Liberal party and the rural-based National party. But in Queensland those two parties are amalgamated as the LNP.

Again for overseas readers: Like the USA, Germany and India, Australia has State governments as well as the Federal government. So it may be useful to know the usual abbreviations for the Australian States: QLD (Queensland), NSW (New South Wales), WA (Western Australia), VIC (Victoria), TAS (Tasmania), SA (South Australia).

For American readers: A "pensioner" is a retired person living on Social Security

"Digger" is an honorific term for an Australian soldier

Another lesson in Australian: When an Australian calls someone a "big-noter", he is saying that the person is a chronic and rather pathetic seeker of admiration -- as in someone who often pulls out "big notes" (e.g. $100.00 bills) to pay for things, thus endeavouring to create the impression that he is rich. The term describes the mentality rather than the actual behavior with money and it aptly describes many Leftists. When they purport to show "compassion" by advocating things that cost themselves nothing (e.g. advocating more taxes on "the rich" to help "the poor"), an Australian might say that the Leftist is "big-noting himself". There is an example of the usage here. The term conveys contempt. There is a wise description of Australians generally here

Another bit of Australian: Any bad writing or messy anything was once often described as being "like a pakapoo ticket". In origin this phrase refers to a ticket written with Chinese characters - and thus inscrutably confusing to Western eyes. These tickets were part of a Chinese gambling game called "pakapoo".

Two of my ancestors were convicts so my family has been in Australia for a long time. As well as that, all four of my grandparents were born in the State where I was born and still live: Queensland. And I am even a member of the world's second-most condemned minority: WASPs (the most condemned is of course the Jews -- which may be why I tend to like Jews). So I think I am as Australian as you can get. I certainly feel that way. I like all things that are iconically Australian: meat pies, Vegemite, Henry Lawson etc. I particularly pride myself on my familiarity with the great Australian slanguage. I draw the line at Iced Vo-Vos and betting on the neddies, however. So if I cannot comment insightfully on Australian affairs, who could?

My son Joe

On all my blogs, I express my view of what is important primarily by the readings that I select for posting. I do however on occasions add personal comments in italicized form at the beginning of an article.

I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.

I imagine that the the RD is still sending mailouts to my 1950s address!

I am an army man. Although my service in the Australian army was chiefly noted for its un-notability, I DID join voluntarily in the Vietnam era, I DID reach the rank of Sergeant, and I DID volunteer for a posting in Vietnam. So I think I may be forgiven for saying something that most army men think but which most don't say because they think it is too obvious: The profession of arms is the noblest profession of all because it is the only profession where you offer to lay down your life in performing your duties. Our men fought so that people could say and think what they like but I myself always treat military men with great respect -- respect which in my view is simply their due.

The kneejerk response of the Green/Left to people who challenge them is to say that the challenger is in the pay of "Big Oil", "Big Business", "Big Pharma", "Exxon-Mobil", "The Pioneer Fund" or some other entity that they see, in their childish way, as a boogeyman. So I think it might be useful for me to point out that I have NEVER received one cent from anybody by way of support for what I write. As a retired person, I live entirely on my own investments. I do not work for anybody and I am not beholden to anybody. And I have NO investments in oil companies or mining companies

Although I have been an atheist for all my adult life, I have no hesitation in saying that the single book which has influenced me most is the New Testament. And my Scripture blog will show that I know whereof I speak.

The Rt. Rev. Phil Case (Moderator of the Presbyterian church in Queensland) is a Pharisee, a hypocrite, an abomination and a "whited sepulchre".

English-born Australian novellist, Patrick White was a great favourite in literary circles. He even won a Nobel prize. But I and many others I have spoken to find his novels very turgid and boring. Despite my interest in history, I could only get through about a third of his historical novel Voss before I gave up. So why has he been so popular in literary circles? Easy. He was a miserable old Leftist coot, and, incidentally, a homosexual. And literary people are mostly Leftists with similar levels of anger and alienation from mainstream society. They enjoy his jaundiced outlook, his dissatisfaction, rage and anger.

Would you believe that there once was a politician whose nickname was "Honest"? "Honest" Frank Nicklin M.M. was a war hero, a banana farmer and later the conservative Premier of my home State of Queensland in the '60s. He was even popular with the bureaucracy and gave the State a remarkably tranquil 10 years during his time in office. Sad that there are so few like him.

Revered Labour Party leader Gough Whitlam was a very erudite man so he cannot have been unaware of the similarities of his famous phrase “the Party, the platform, the people” with an earlier slogan: "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuehrer". It's basically the same slogan in reverse order.

Australia's original inhabitants were a race of pygmies, some of whom survived into modern times in the mountainous regions of the Atherton tableland in far North Queensland. See also here. Below is a picture of one of them taken in 2007, when she was 105 years old and 3'7" tall

Julia Gillard, a failed feminist flop. She was given the job of Prime Minister of Australia but her feminist preaching was so unpopular that she was booted out of the job by her own Leftist party. Her signature "achievements" were the carbon tax and the mining tax, both of which were repealed by the next government.

The "White Australia Policy: "The Immigration Restriction Act was not about white supremacy, racism, or the belief that whites were higher up the evolutionary tree than the coloured races. Rather, it was designed to STOP the racist exploitation of non-whites (all of whom would have been illiterate peasants practicing religions and cultures anathema to progressive democracy) being conscripted into a life of semi-slavery in a coolie-worked plantation economy for the benefit of the absolute monarchs, hereditary aristocracy and the super-wealthy companies and share-holders of the northern hemisphere.

A great little kid

In November 2007, a four-year-old boy was found playing in a croc-infested Territory creek after sneaking off pig hunting alone with four dogs and a puppy. The toddler was found five-and-a-half hours after he set off from his parents' house playing in a creek with the puppy. Amazingly, Daniel Woditj also swam two creeks known to be inhabited by crocs during his adventurous romp. Mr Knight said that after walking for several kilometres, Daniel came to a creek and swam across it. Four of his dogs "bailed up" at the creek but the youngster continued on undaunted with his puppy to a second creek. Mr Knight said Daniel swam the second croc-infested creek and walked on for several more kilometres. "Captain is a hard bushman and Daniel is following in his footsteps. They breed them tough out bush."

A great Australian: His eminence George Pell. Pictured in devout company before his elevation to Rome

There are also two blogspot blogs which record what I think are my main recent articles here and here. Similar content can be more conveniently accessed via my subject-indexed list of short articles here or here (I rarely write long articles these days)

NOTE: The archives provided by blogspot below are rather inconvenient. They break each month up into small bits. If you want to scan whole months at a time, the backup archives will suit better. See here or here